I Had A Difficult Time, In Those Days, Reconciling What I Saw With What I Had Been Taught Was Right, And I Had To Sort Over My Ideas And Deep-Rooted Prejudices A Good Many Times.

The two pretty squaws prepared a nice breakfast for us, and we set out, quite refreshed, to travel over the malapais (as the great lava-beds in that part of the country are called).

There was no trace of a road. A few hours of this grinding and crunching over crushed lava wearied us all, and the animals found it hard pulling, although the country was level.

We crossed Silver Creek without difficulty, and arrived at Stinson's ranch, after traveling twenty-five miles, mostly malapais. Do not for a moment think of these ranches as farms. Some of them were deserted sheep ranches, and had only adobe walls standing in ruins. But the camp must have a name, and on the old maps of Arizona these names are still to be found. Of course, on the new railroad maps, they are absent. They were generally near a spring or a creek, consequently were chosen as camps.

Mrs. Bailey had her year-old boy, Howard, with her. We began to experience the utmost inconvenience from the lack of warm water and other things so necessary to the health and comfort of children. But we tried to make light of it all, and the two Lieutenants tried, in a man's way, to help us out. We declared we must have some clean towels for the next day, so we tried to rinse out, in the cold, hard water of the well, those which we had with us, and, as it was now nightfall and there was no fire inside this apparently deserted ranch, the two Lieutenants stood and held the wet towels before the camp-fire until they were dry.

Mrs. Bailey and I, too tired to move, sat and watched them and had each our own thoughts. She was an army girl and perhaps had seen such things before, but it was a situation that did not seem quite in keeping with my ideas of the fitness of things in general, and with the uniform in particular. The uniform, associated in my mind with brilliant functions, guard-mount, parades and full-dress weddings - the uniform, in fact, that I adored. As I sat, gazing at them, they both turned around, and, realizing how almost ludicrous they looked, they began to laugh. Whereupon we all four laughed and Jack said: "Nice work for United States officers! hey, Bailey ?"

"It might be worse," sighed the handsome, blond-haired Bailey.

Thirty miles the next day, over a good road, brought us to Walker's ranch, on the site of old Camp Supply. This ranch was habitable in a way, and the owner said we might use the bedrooms; but the wild-cats about the place were so numerous and so troublesome in the night, that we could not sleep.

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